


Big Eden Standards

by gonergone



Category: Big Eden (2000)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5419343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/pseuds/gonergone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first note was folded neatly under the truck's windshield wiper as Henry left the school.  He opened it gingerly, frowning.  The handwriting was neat, left-slanting printing: Pike likes old movies, it declared, and Henry looked around again, tapping one finger on the hood absently, considering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Eden Standards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Giddygeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/gifts).



The first note was folded neatly under the truck's windshield wiper as Henry left the school. He shifted the box of paint he was carrying onto his hip and glanced around carefully before he slid the paper out carefully, his New York instincts not entirely extinguished after six months out of the city. Notes left on cars in New York almost always included some variation of _asshole_ and imaginative uses of the word 'fuck' to describe someone's driving or parking prowess – Henry had never even owned a car in the city and even he knew that. He opened it gingerly, frowning. The handwriting was neat, left-slanting printing: _Pike likes old movies_ , it declared, and Henry looked around again, tapping one finger on the hood absently, considering.

*

He waited for Grace outside her classroom, leaning against the wall until she spotted him. 

"What kind of old movies?" 

Her eyebrows knit together and he knew he'd guessed wrong. "What?"

Henry cleared his throat, changing track. "I think – I heard somewhere that Pike likes old movies. Do you have any recommendations?"

The look she gave him – half fond, half exasperated – was one he was growing more and more used to. " _Old_ isn't exactly helpful. Are you thinking romance or thriller? Spencer Tracy or Cary Grant?"

Henry blinked. "I don't really know," he admitted.

"Well, he's your…" she hesitated, watching Henry's face. "Friend," she finally said firmly, if a little regretfully. "What do you think he’d like?"

"I found the entire John Wayne collection tucked under Sam's TV, but somehow I don't think that's the sort of thing Pike would want to watch."

"Probably not," Grace agreed dryly. The look was nearly all exasperation now, and Henry was beginning to understand why someone might've thought leaving him a note was a good idea. The problem was the note wasn't enough. Pike was still an unknown continent, and Henry needed the full map, not just the signposts.

"I'll have to think about it," he sighed. 

*

He slipped into the general store quietly, the way he'd learned to do it over the past few weeks. If the guys crowded around the cappuccino machine saw him they'd chorus a hello, and then Pike would be watching him, even if he was busy, ringing up someone's groceries or on the phone. Henry had taken Pike's attention for granted the first few months he'd been in town, but now it felt like a spotlight: the slow, shy smile and the way Pike's eyebrows lifted slightly whenever Henry walked in, the way he just unfurled like a flower in sunlight. It wasn’t that Henry didn’t like it, any of it – he loved Pike's attention, but he also loved standing in the corner near the tattered paperbacks and watching Pike when Pike didn't know he was being watched, the gentle grace and ease that evaporated as soon as he knew Henry was there. 

It had taken Henry a shamefully long time to realize that the real Pike was so much more than he had ever suspected.

What he really wanted to do was pull out a sketch pad – or even better, one of his easels – and try to recreate the long lines of Pike's body, the subtle perfection of him. Henry knew that it was something Pike would never agree to on his own, that he'd do it just to make Henry happy, and that bothered Henry. The horrible, selfish part of him loved knowing that Pike would do practically anything he wanted, but the rest of him wanted to be able to give something back to Pike, to make Pike happy. Pike deserved that. Hell, Pike deserved more than that, but Henry knew enough about his own flaws to wonder if he'd ever really be capable of giving Pike what he deserved. Instead, he'd focus on what Pike needed. _That_ he could manage. Probably.

*

The second note was curved around the back of a canvas Henry had been hauling back and forth to the school in a bout of optimism that one day he'd finally get to work on a new idea he'd had. The concept wasn't bad, he thought, taking the bones of the story that Pike had told him and doing a painting or two, maybe even a full series, from the point of view of each of the characters. He was having trouble with the execution, and so the canvas sat, large and white and blank, a silent reproach that he put into the bed of the truck to haul uselessly to the school and then haul uselessly home. 

Finding the carefully creased piece of paper taped to it made him laugh a little as he pulled it free. "Another one? You're kidding, right? Let me guess," he said to it. "Pike likes flowers. Or maybe Pike likes rollerblading. Alpacas? Ultimate Frisbee? Are you going to give me some movie titles, or is that making it too easy?"

_Pike is allergic to walnuts and strawberries._

…which wasn't completely without merit, in terms of information he might need. Henry decided to stop being snarky at the notes.

*

"I think I have a secret admirer," he told Anna.

"You?" she snorted, nearly choking on her beer.

"Yes, me," he retorted, a little offended. "Well, to be fair, they are more interested in Pike than in me," he had to admit. "But I'm the one getting the secret notes, so that makes them my admirer, right?"

She shook her head. "I really don't think that's how it works. Wait, what kind of notes are they? Warning you off?"

"No, more like giving me love advice, listing things Pike likes and doesn't like. Do I seem like I need love advice to you?"

She snorted into her beer. "Henry, you're my friend and I love you, but you definitely seem like you need all the advice you can get."

Henry struggled with the truth of it. "I'll have you know that I have had some very profound relationships." 

She didn't even bother to snort this time. "Profound relationships that have lasted how long? A week? Two weeks? Longevity has never been your strong suit, Henry, and _don't_ bring up Dean, because that does not help your case." She pointed at him, flushing a little. Dean was still a sore subject, best avoided unless she had no choice.

Henry pondered briefly what might be making her feel like she had no choice. "You don't understand. In New York, two weeks _is_ a long relationship." 

"You're not in New York now," she pointed out, "and Pike is the furthest thing from New York you're likely to find. If you want my advice, don't start something if you don't plan on it lasting by Big Eden standards."

Henry frowned, picking at the edge of the bar with his thumbnail. "I wouldn't have stayed if I didn't think Pike was worth it. That there was something special here."

"I know," she sighed, watching him over the bottle as she drained it. "But good intentions aren't always enough."

*

The third note he found tucked into his mailbox, under a small pile of bills still addressed to Sam. The mailbox was white with a green post, and it was dinged and scraped where winter plows had run into it more than once. There was a trick to opening it – you had to jimmy it to the side, which is what struck Henry the most, that someone knew how to pull open Sam's ancient mailbox just to slip another note inside. 

The note was at the bottom, and Henry didn't even notice it until he'd flipped through the mail at the kitchen table.

_Pike likes dancing._

"You know," he said to the empty house, "these really aren't as helpful as you think they are." Henry tried to imagine shy, reserved Pike dancing and failed. What kind of dancing did he like, anyway? There was weekly line dancing at Little's Lounge, not that Henry had ever taken part. He shuddered at the thought. It reminded him of all the reasons he'd left Big Eden in the first place, and the reasons he'd promised himself he'd never come back, not for good. 

He supposed this was what Anna had meant by good intentions not being enough. Being in a relationship meant sacrifice, which had never been Henry's strong point. Which…made everything else a foregone conclusion, usually. That was what Anna had meant: if Henry wanted things to be different with Pike, then Henry had to be different. That was all there was to it. 

If Pike liked line dancing, then Henry would go line dancing. 

He just hoped it wasn't line dancing.

*

There wasn't really a good way to lead up to it, but later Henry supposed any way would have been better than what he did.

"Little's is having line dancing tonight," he said, watching Pike's expression closely. Catching the subtle shifts in Pike's eyes and interpreting what they all meant was something that Henry thought he could spend the rest of his life learning, but he was already picking up on some of the big cues.

"They have dancing every Wednesday and Saturday," Pike agreed, his tone slightly puzzled.

"I thought…" Henry took a deep breath, realizing how nervous he felt. His palms hadn't sweated when he asked someone out since he was sixteen. He hadn't felt this ridiculous in _decades_. "Maybe we could go. If you wanted."

Pike's eyebrows lifted as his mild puzzlement turned into something a lot stronger. "You hate line dancing."

"I don't hate it," Henry protested weakly. Had he told Pike he hated it? He couldn't remember. "I'm just not very good at it. But I could learn, if you wanted to teach me." That, at least, wasn't a lie.

Pike's eyes widened, and Henry was sure he was going to make a two left feet joke (in fact, Henry had a couple of variations already rolling around in his head), but instead Pike smiled softly. "Like… a date?"

Henry felt his answering smile before he even realized it was going to happen. "Sure, a date," he said warmly. "We should have one of those."

"Or more than one," Pike suggested in his quiet voice. There was just enough uncertainty in the words that Henry reached out and touched one of his hands gently, just a single trailing finger along the back of Pike's knuckles. 

"I would like that," he said seriously, honestly. 

Pike's smile bloomed immediately, ink exploding across water. It warmed Henry's whole body and he found himself leaning closer to Pike, both of them grinning like loons. 

*

The notes kept coming, one or two a week, a jotted line that never became any more illuminating then when the notes had started. It wasn't long before Henry's insights into Pike far outstripped the notes, but he still read them carefully, collecting facts about Pike's needs and desires like his life depended on it. 

Sometimes he thought it might.

*

The first time Pike spent the night at Sam's, Henry woke up to the sounds of him moving around in the kitchen. It was a cheerfully domestic feeling, waking to Pike there, and Henry thought he wouldn't mind waking up that way every morning. He lay in bed, drowsing happily until the smell of coffee and bacon finally roused him enough to get him up. 

He wandered down the hall in his slippers, running a hand through his hair as he entered the sunny kitchen. Francis padded around his feet, and he bent to give her a friendly scritch behind the ears. When he straightened up, he noticed Pike hunched over the table, straightening quickly when Henry poured himself a cup of coffee. He looked almost guilty, which made no sense at all to Henry's sleep-soaked mind until he saw the pile of notes, latest on top, lying in a patch of sun on the battered old table.

"I didn't mean to snoop," Pike said quickly, his hands wrapping into nervous fists. 

Henry knew that much – he'd left the notes there himself the evening before when he'd come in from a run around part of the lake. Just before he'd had to get ready for their date. _Pike likes apple turnovers_ , was all the latest said, and none of them were remotely incriminating, but he still felt caught out and exposed. 

Pike was not supposed to know that he had help. Pike was not supposed to know that he _needed_ help. Henry sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and putting down his mug. "I didn't write those," he said, and then stopped, because he still didn't know who did.

Pike watched him in his quiet way, head cocked slightly to the side. "I do like apple turnovers," he said cautiously, "and all the rest of it." He waved his hand vaguely at the pile of paper. 

"Well, at least they're accurate. I've always sort of wondered." Henry sighed. "Someone's been leaving these for me all over town for the last few months." _Someone who knows me well enough to know I won't accept help unless I'm forced to take it_ , he almost added, but there wasn't any point: they both knew it. Sometimes it amazed Henry that Pike could see him so clearly – more clearly, even, then Henry himself – and still want him. Sam had always said that love was the greatest of mysteries, and Henry had to agree.

Pike blinked slowly, his mouth quirking up slightly. "I've been wondering what those guys were up to."

"Those guys?" Henry asked. Then: "Oh. _Those_ guys." He couldn't help rolling his eyes at himself. Because: of course. Henry had just never thought that those guys were on his side of the Henry and Pike equation. They were Pike's friends, protective of Pike, and Henry had never thought he'd be included in the inner circle. He'd been gone too long.

"Leon and Lloyd, mostly," Pike shrugged. "They've always been troublemakers."

"Wait," Henry said, trying to make sense of this, "what?" It had never occurred to him that the guys had factions and independent pieces, that they weren't all parts of the same undifferentiated mass. It was stupid, he knew, but they were always just there, in the store. He'd never gotten to know them as individuals. Had never, he realized with a sinking heart, bothered to try.

"They like you," Pike said with a shy smile. 

"Oh," Henry said again, because he couldn't think of anything else. It all suddenly seemed like too much revelation before he'd even had a sip of coffee. "As long as _you_ like me, I think we'll be okay." He leaned in and kissed Pike lightly, waiting until Pike's lips opened lightly under his before pressing harder, the familiar feel and taste of Pike overcoming the last tendrils of his unease and embarrassment. It didn't matter how he and Pike had gotten together, just that they were together. That wasn't going to change any time soon, and that was all that mattered.


End file.
